“While the girls are at school, I’ll take a closer look at these documents and try to find more information on the foundation online. Maybe more about the corporate endowment, which I discovered is managed by Mount Isabel Bank & Trust.”
She stood and started stacking the piles of papers, giving the collection a quarter turn each time to keep them separated. Then, returning to stand behind her chair, she glanced down at the name she’d jotted in her notebook. “Then I’ll also see if I can find out anything about that guy, Phil Fuller, who was mentioned in the confession. We don’t even know who he is. Or was.”
“But you won’t be going out anywhere alone, will you?”
“Other than for school drop-off or pickup, no.”
“Good. I just don’t think it’s safe.”
She didn’t point out that she’d be alone in her home once he’d left for the station and she’d taken the girls to school. He had to be as tired as she was not to have reached that conclusion.
“Tomorrow—I mean later today—we have to look at relocating you and the girls to a safer spot.”
Instead of arguing about that now, when she was too tired to even make her case, she nodded. “There are clean towels in the bathroom at the back. Good night.”
“See you in the morning.” He stood up from his chair and grabbed his backpack.
Rachel shut off the dining room light, leaving him with only the lamp in the corner of the living room to guide him to the facilities or her to the stairs. As they passed each other on their opposite journeys, their fingertips brushed, causing a tremor to climb from her wrist to her shoulder.
She crossed her arms to resist the ridiculous temptation to reach up to him, allow him to fold her into his arms and provide comfort along with the safety he’d promised. But she already knew how that could end, and however delightful, they were both exhausted. She couldn’t think about that, anyway, when so many questions still crowded in her mind, their answers elusive.
Making the smart move, she continued to the staircase, but stopped at the landing.
“Mick,” she called in a soft voice just as he switched on the overhead light in the kitchen. He stuck his head out through the doorway. “Thanks for staying.”
He nodded and then moved out of sight. She climbed the stairs, her head and heart as heavy as her footsteps on each tread. With Mick out here as extra security, she had at least a small chance of getting some sleep.
Chapter 20
Rachel pulled her minivan into the pickup line with ten minutes to spare. Though she should have set an alarm to remind herself to leave sooner, she at least hadn’t gotten so caught up in her online research that she’d forgotten the time. The searches had definitely distracted from her dictation work, where she’d made it through only a single day of recordings. If she wasn’t careful, in addition to everything else they were facing, she would be the second Hoffman out of a job.
She put the van in Park but left it idling, the interior not fully warm after the short drive. Grabbing her phone, she tapped out a text to Mick. She’d missed him this morning. Even eight hours later, she didn’t know what to make of the strange emptiness that had filled her when she’d descended the stairs and found the couch unoccupied, the stack of blankets and sheets carefully folded and resting on one end. Her timing had never been great, but she couldn’t have picked a worse time to have become attached to him.
Found a few answers but a lot more questions.
She waited for the blinking dots that would show he was responding, but only the “Delivered” line appeared beneath her message bubble. At least some people were working during office hours today.
The school’s obnoxious trio of chimes sounded just like it did every day, and the chaos of racing children began with the usual small army of skilled adults doing their best to hold all that enthusiasm in check. After a half-dozen big yellow buses pulled from the lot with their precious cargo inside, the walkers and the parent-pickup kids were released from their holding corral inside the gymnasium.
The children spread out along an invisible barrier that ran the distance of the front walk, waiting for a school official who could match them with the parents or guardians authorized to drive them off school grounds.
From this distance, she couldn’t see the twins, but that wasn’t unusual. Even with the matching pink coats they’d begged for, she sometimes had a difficult time picking them out until the crowd thinned.
Like all the other drivers, she inched forward as educators on bus duty brought the children out of the line, one by one, and helped them into other vans and SUVs anywhere along that curb. They even helped buckle them in since parents weren’t allowed to climb out of their vehicles during the pickup process.
Rachel still hadn’t placed the girls once she was close enough to have a fairly good view of the whole line. Her leg, suspended where her foot was stationed on the brake pedal, trembled. She was overreacting, she told herself, as she shoved back a wave of dizziness and reached down to still her shaking thigh. The twins were out there somewhere.
Only they weren’t.
Her heart was beating its way out of her chest when she reached the front spot. She could barely keep her foot on the brake.
A sturdy paraprofessional she only knew as “Mrs. B.” stepped to the van and then took a good look around. She was smiling when she gestured for Rachel to open her passenger window.
“Good afternoon, Miss Hoffman. I don’t see the girls. Did they accidentally take the bus this afternoon? I apologize if there was a miscommunication. That does happen occasionally.”
“Miss Hoffman?” the woman repeated.
Clearly, she expected an answer, but Rachel couldn’t breathe, let alone speak.
